Archive for 1 July, 2009

Birds of a Feather: Part II

1 July, 2009

Gee, I guess I’m not alone in my rhetorical musings as to why Obama would be so dead set against the military lawfully removing a President who continually ignores the Constitution:

The ugly face of liberalism
By Selwyn Duke – American Thinker

It has been interesting watching the response to the Honduran military’s recent ousting its nation’s president, Manuel Zelaya.  Barack Obama called the action “not legal” and Hillary Clinton said that the arrest of Zelaya should be condemned.  Most interesting, perhaps, is that taking this position places them shoulder to shoulder with Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan’s roaring mouse, Hugo Chavez, who is threatening military action against Honduras.  Now, some would say this is an eclectic group – others would say, not so much – regardless, what has gotten them so upset?

Let’s start with what they say.  They are calling the ouster a “coup” and claim that Zelaya is still Honduras’ rightful president.  Some of them say we must support democracy.  But they have said little, if anything, about the rule of law.  And most of what they have said is wrong.

First, it doesn’t appear that Sunday’s ouster was a military coup but a law enforcement action.  It is not a military strongman who sought extra-legal control, but Zelaya himself.  Here is the story.

Zelaya is a leftist, a less precocious version of Chavez, sort of like the Venezuelan’s Mini-me.  And, like Chavez, it’s seems that Zelaya was bent on perpetuating his rule and increasing his power in defiance of the rule of law.  That is to say, the Honduran Constitution limits presidents to one four-year term, and this wasn’t quite enough to satisfy Zelaya’s ambitions.  So he sought to amend the constitution, which may sound okay, except for one minor detail.  Mary Anastasia O’Grady in the Wall Street Journal explains:

While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

. . .  the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court’s order.

However, like so many apparent megalomaniacs, Zelaya greatly overestimated his popularity.  The groundswell of citizen support he had counted on didn’t materialize; thus, his law breaking could not be sanitized by consensus making.  The military then arrested him, acting under orders from legitimate civilian authorities and in defense of the rule of law.  The good guys won . . . at least for now.

Also note that the military confined itself to its prescribed police action and is not running the country.  The new president is 63-year-old Roberto Micheletti, a member of Zelaya’s own Liberal Party.  Moreover, elections are still planned for this November.

Micheletti also enjoys wide support, from the rank-and-file to the those breathing rarified air in elite institutions.  As for Zelaya, while you may not be able to please all of the people all of the time, he certainly seems to have been able to displease them.  He not only alienated the Congress, Supreme Court, the people and the attorney general — who also declared the referendum illegal and vowed to prosecute anyone facilitating it — he is also opposed by the Catholic Church and many evangelicals.  Really, no one seems to like him.

No one, that is, but Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega.

Oh, and let’s not forget Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are, anyone?

In fact, Obama’s position is striking.  More than almost anything else — almost anything — this dance with the Devil reveals his true colors.  Sure, he was criticized over his handling of Iran, but even I will say there are two sides.  After all, you could make the case that overt support for the protesters would provide the clerics and President Ahmadinejad with invaluable propaganda material.  And Obama looked foolish when he paraded about the world issuing mea culpas on behalf of big bad America, but, hey, that’s a reflection of the standard liberal America-as-villain narrative.  I don’t think it surprised too many people.  But, as bad as Obama has been, this occupies a different realm all together.  And I think most fail to appreciate the gravity of what I will not even call a policy, but an offense.

Obama has sided with a thug, a man who — for completely self-serving reasons — sought to subvert his nation’s constitution.  Obama has sided with a man who — like Pancho Villa on a cross-border raid — lead a mob in an effort to execute this illegal scheme.  And Obama does this while paying lip service to democracy, even as he imperils it; he claims to stand for freedom, even while supporting those who would extinguish it.  It is un-American.  It is ugly.  It is, in a word, evil.

Yet it doesn’t surprise me.  Some may think the issue is simply that, although Obama despises Zelaya’s tactics, he is driven to support a fellow traveler.  Others may think that Obama wants to support a fellow traveler and is indifferent about the tactics.  Neither is entirely correct.  In point of fact, Zelaya has certain tactics.  Obama has certain tactics.

And they are largely the same.

In fact, they are shared by virtually all leftists.

Ignoring the rule of law, manipulating the Constitution, acting as if the end justifies the means . . . .  Sound familiar?  This is standard left doctrine.

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Obama’s Top Five Health Care Lies

1 July, 2009

Too good to pass up:

obama-liar-liar

Obama’s Top Five Health Care Lies
Shikha Dalmia, 07.01.09 – Forbes.com
TonySopranoCare

President Barack Obama walked into the Oval Office with a veritable halo over his head. In the eyes of his backers, he could say or do no wrong because he had evidently descended directly from heaven to return celestial order to our fallen world. Oprah declared his tongue to be “dipped in the unvarnished truth.” Newsweek editor Evan Thomas averred that Obama “stands above the country and above the world as a sort of a God.”

But when it comes to health care reform, with every passing day, Obama seems less God and more demagogue, uttering not transcendental truths, but bald-faced lies. Here are the top five lies that His Awesomeness has told–the first two for no reason other than to get elected and the next three to sell socialized medicine to a wary nation.

Lie One: No one will be compelled to buy coverage.

During the campaign, Obama insisted that he would not resort to an individual mandate to achieve universal coverage. In fact, he repeatedly ripped Hillary Clinton’s plan for proposing one. “To force people to buy coverage,” he insisted, “you’ve got to have a very harsh penalty.” What will this penalty be, he demanded? “Are you going to garnish their wages?” he asked Hillary in one debate.

Yet now, Obama is behaving as if he said never a hostile word about the mandate. Earlier this month, in a letter to Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., he blithely declared that he was all for “making every American responsible for having health insurance coverage, and making employers share in the cost.”

But just like Hillary, he is refusing to say precisely what he will do to those who want to forgo insurance. There is a name for such a health care approach: It is called TonySopranoCare.

Lie Two: No new taxes on employer benefits.

Obama took his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, to the mat for suggesting that it might be better to remove the existing health care tax break that individuals get on their employer-sponsored coverage, but return the vast bulk–if not all–of the resulting revenues in the form of health care tax credits. This would theoretically have made coverage both more affordable and portable for everyone. Obama, however, would have none of it, portraying this idea simply as the removal of a tax break. “For the first time in history, he wants to tax your health benefits,” he thundered. “Apparently, Sen. McCain doesn’t think it’s enough that your health premiums have doubled. He thinks you should have to pay taxes on them too.”

Yet now Obama is signaling his willingness to go along with a far worse scheme to tax employer-sponsored benefits to fund the $1.6 trillion or so it will cost to provide universal coverage. Contrary to Obama’s allegations, McCain’s plan did not ultimately entail a net tax increase because he intended to return to individuals whatever money was raised by scrapping the tax deduction. Not so with Obama. He apparently told Sen. Baucus that he would consider the senator’s plan for rolling back the tax exclusion that expensive, Cadillac-style employer-sponsored plans enjoy, in order to pay for universal coverage. But, unlike McCain, he has said nothing about putting offsetting deductions or credits in the hands of individuals.

In other words, Obama might well end up doing what McCain never set out to do: Impose a net tax increase on health benefits for the first time in history.
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By the Waters of Babylon

1 July, 2009

It’s truly insane the way Lefturds like Obama are positioning themselves to destroy Israel.  It just makes me sad…

By the waters, the waters of Babylon.
We lay down and wept, and wept, for thee Zion.
We remember thee, remember thee, remember thee Zion.

‘Obama’ Think-Tank: Israel Should Cede Jerusalem Sovereignty
by Hillel Fendel

(IsraelNN.com) A think tank which is arguably the most influential in Washington is proposing an “interim” neutral administration to govern Jerusalem instead of Israel.

The Center for American Progress (CAP), headquartered just three blocks from the White House in Washington, is regarded as one of the most influential think tanks in the city, if not the most influential. “CAP has been an incubator for liberal thought and helped build the [Democratic party] platform that triumphed in the 2008 campaign,” according to a
Bloomberg.com report, which noted that some of the group’s recommendations were adopted by Obama while he was still president-elect.

Four weeks ago, CAP held a panel discussion based on the premise that the Old City of Jerusalem is the main impediment in finding a solution to the Israel-Arab problem in the Holy Land. Michael Bell, a former Canadian Ambassador to Jordan, Egypt and Israel, presented a plan entitled the Jerusalem Old City Initiative. The plan does not call for the internationalization of Jerusalem — but is not far off from that. It recommends that both Israel and a future state of Palestine appoint a third-party administrator that would run and police the city.

Bell explained that the plan calls for an administration or regime that would govern the Old City of Jerusalem for an interim period, without either Israel or the PA giving up their demands for sovereignty: “Frankly, I don’t think there’s going to be any agreement on sovereignty. I think that the two sides need not cede their demands for sovereignty; these claims can remain exactly as they are today. The sides would simply agree to delay the implementation or assertion of these claims until after an agreement is reached. Until then, a special administration would be set up, with the two sides agreeing to set this up, at least on an interim basis. And what this would do … would be to ensure dignity, human rights and equity for all living in the Old City, all visitors, and all pilgrims.”

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Islamists Behead Christian Father’s Sons Because He Would Not Rat Out Another Church Leader

1 July, 2009

Again I say:  “Behold, the ‘religion of peace’ ‘respecting’ Christ and His followers:”

Somalia militants Behead Christian Father’s Sons
Wednesday, July 1, 2009 (1:03 pm)
By BosNewsLife Africa Service

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (BosNewsLife)– Muslim militants have beheaded two young boys in Somalia because their Christian father refused to hand over information about a church leader, a Christian news agency reported Wednesday, July 1.

Compass Direct News said militants from the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab were still searching for 55-year-old Musa Mohammed Yusuf, after killing his two young sons in February.

His sons, Abdi Rahaman Musa Yusuf, 11, Hussein Musa Yusuf, 12, and Abdulahi Musa Yusuf, 7, were apparently abducted February 21 during an al Shabaab raid on their family home in Yonday village, 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Kismayo in Somalia.

Soon after, two of them were beheaded, while the youngest son apparently managed to reach the home again, crying. “I watched my three boys dragged away helplessly as my youngest boy was crying,” said Yusuf’s wife Batula Ali Arbow in published remarks. “I knew they were going to be slaughtered.”

HUSBAND FLEES

The incident happened a day after her husband, who leads an underground church, was forced to flee as militants interrogated him about his relationship with Salat Mberwa, another church leader. Mbwerwa, who supervises a 66-member congregation, reportedly taught Yusuf about Christianity.

Yusuf eventually managed to reach a Kenyan refugee camp where he later met the surviving family members, Christians said. However they apparently were forced to leave their 80-year-old grandmother behind after burying the two sons.  Her whereabouts were unknown Wednesday July 1.

[…]

Islamic Imperialism

1 July, 2009

An interesting article I thought I’d share with you all:

Confronting the New Islamic Imperialism
It is no longer European imperialism and colonialism, but Islamic imperialism and colonialism

By Daniel Greenfield  Wednesday, July 1, 2009CFP

Talk of colonialism and imperialism is all the rage when academic leftists sit down to critique the problems of terrorism and the clash of civilizations. But where a century ago terms such as colonialism and imperialism were easy enough to define, back when European governments held actual colonies and protectorates in Africa, Asia and the Middle East– what do the terms actually mean today?

There are no European colonies today. And the lands that are at the center of the controversy are themselves non-Muslim. When Muslims attack Europe, America or Israel… it may very well be imperialism and colonialism, but it is no longer European imperialism and colonialism, but Islamic imperialism and colonialism.

It is Islamic ideologies and nations that seek Lebensraum, that work to expand their way across borders and even oceans, to create colonies on foreign soil, spread their religion at the expense of native beliefs and hold governing power abroad.

Today it is no longer the European who sails to foreign countries to spread the faith and “civilize the savages”, it is the Muslim. The new Cecil Rhodes’ and William Walker’s are a lot more likely to be based out of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. Their oppression and ruthless is equally directed at Europeans, as at Africans, Jews, Filipinos and any number of native peoples who stand in their way.

Long before the sun stared without setting down on the British Empire, Islamic Empires had been carved with brutal unyielding force across the face of the globe. Long before the American South saw a single slave, Muslim slave traders were moving human cargo back and forth, kidnapping and seizing slaves from Africa to the English coastline.

Islamic imperialism and colonialism was there long ago until recent times. The current clash of civilizations is the product of the Islamic attempt to revive those ancient empires they consider to have been wrongly taken from them.

To argue as the left does, that Islamic terrorism is the product of oppression, is as absurd and false as describing Nazi violence as the product of oppression. Any honest academic should have as much sympathy for Bedouin Muslim territorial claims to Israel or Spain, as he would for French claims to Algeria. Yet the academic double standard treats European colonialism as illegitimate, and Islamic colonialism as legitimate.

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Breaking: Muzzy Mob in Pakistan Burns Down Houses and Throws Acid on Christian Women and Children

1 July, 2009

Behold, the “religion of peace” “respecting” Christ and His followers:

Muslim Mob Burns Down 100 Christian Homes in Pakistan
Riot Incited via Mosque Loudspeakers; Mob Throws Acid on Women and Children

07/01/09 Pakistan (International Christian Concern) – This morning 100 Christian houses and churches were set on fire by local Muslims in the city of Kasur South, east of Lahore, Pakistan. The riots were incited by broadcasts from local mosques.

This incident is similar to a February 1997 attack when thousands of Christian houses and churches were burned and hundreds of Christians were injured.

ICC partners received the news this morning and went immediately to the scene to help injured Christians transferred to Lahore, renting two mini vans for this purpose.

So far 9 burned women and 4 children have been transferred to Lahore for further medical treatment. All of them have been injured by throwing acid on them.

Local police have arrived on the scene but the situation is out of control as thousands of Muslims have gathered for this purpose.

More details to follow.

Please call the Pakistani embassy in your country to ask them to protect the Christians in Kasur South.

Pakistan Embassies:

USA: (202) 243-6500
Canada: (613) 238-7881
UK: 0870-005-6967